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Osman Kavala will turn 70 next year. He has been in prison for nine years. During those nine years, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled three times that his detention and conviction violated his rights and called for his “immediate release.” Most recently, just three days ago, the ECHR once again called on Turkey to “release him.”
Yet not a leaf stirred. The judiciary remained silent. The government, meanwhile, lashed out at the ECHR. Turkey, after all, has long since become a country that refuses to implement the rulings of either the ECHR or its own Constitutional Court.
THE RED BILLIONAIRE
Osman Kavala is a businessperson. A human rights activist. The founder and chair of Anadolu Kültür, a nonprofit organization. He is known for supporting virtually every pro-freedom initiative in Turkey. Indeed, that was the behavior that brought the curse of such a long imprisonment down upon him. He was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for supporting the 2013 Gezi protests. Impartial legal experts agree that he should not have spent even a single day behind bars. But what good has that done? Kavala remains in prison.
We’ve already noted that Kavala was a businessperson. That was why, for a time, he was known as the “red billionaire.” He was called “red” because, in Turkey, libertarian ideals are associated with the left — and also as an allusion to the reddish color of his beard. “Billionaire,” meanwhile, was a reference to his wealth.
IS GEOGRAPHY REALLY DESTINY?
“Geography is destiny,” says the common phrase. It is generally invoked in unhappy circumstances. It means, “These troubles befell us because we were born here, because we belong to this place.”
Whether the saying is true or false is open to debate, but in Kavala’s case, it seems at least partly true. Consider this: Kavala was born in Paris. Yet he chose to carry out all his work in Turkey — until he was imprisoned in 2017. That is very much a matter of geography. He could have lived out his life comfortably anywhere in the world, but has spent the past nine years in a cell in his own country. And, by the way, he shows not the slightest sign of regret. Nor does he dwell on what he has endured or the injustices inflicted upon him. What he wants is not for the universal principles of law to be applied only to him, but to everyone. In Kavala’s case, then, we must revise the saying: Geography is torment.
